Seethrough
by BC
Summary: Both have been wearing masks they never managed to see through. Reluctantly saving each other’s life, they’re scared enough to look to one another for support. Slash HPDM
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Warnings: slash, very mild sexual situations, mentions of child abuse, mild violence

A/N: This story is already completed and ought to be updated regularly. There will be six chapters altogether. Enjoy, review.

Brynn

x

See-through

x

Chapter 1

x

Harry didn't recall having felt so lonely before.

Sirius was dead and, though he didn't spend days and nights wetting his pillow, Harry felt like he was well and truly alone for the first time in his life. The pain of the dashed hope somehow drowned out the knowledge that he was less alone than he had been throughout his entire childhood, that he had friends and teachers he could turn to, that there was a small army of people willing to stand by his side…

Right now none of that seemed to matter. It was late, hours past curfew, and he was walking down the main staircase of the Hogwarts castle because he had found he was unable to fall asleep tonight again. The Invisibility Cloak didn't protect him from his watchers, so he had given up on carrying it with him everywhere and took to sneaking in the shadows.

In less than a week, he would be shipped off to Dursleys. All those people that were supposed to make him feel less alone would disappear in the distance, his wand would be locked up and he would be left to the _tender mercies_ of Vernon Dursley. Not a particularly cheering prospect…

"Do you smell something, my dear?"

Harry flattened himself against the wall, hastily pulled a used handkerchief from his pocket and transfigured it into a mouse. Mrs Norris rounded the corner, looked straight at him for long enough to let him know that she knew perfectly well _exactly_ who he was and _exactly_ where he was standing, and went off chasing after the rodent.

"Mrs Norris?" Filch's raspy voice sounded closer than before. The old cat came back the way she had gone, carrying a little white fluffy dead thing clasped in its teeth. She met the caretaker at the juncture of the corridors and set off in a different direction.

Harry waited until the shuffling steps faded in the distance and crossed the Entrance Hall to the exit. The night hit him with a wave of warm summer air, filled with scents of flowers and faint buzz of magic. It felt like Hogwarts was trying to hug him… and he loved it.

The grounds were empty and seemed to belong exclusively to him. He felt free; he set out running towards the lake and around it, to a place that was too far from the castle to see, shielded by trees, and yet not further than five minutes of jogging. By the time he reached 'his' clearing, his clothes were damp with sweat and the shirt had begun to slide off his shoulder. He pulled it off.

The overwhelming sense of freedom bade him to cancel all glamours, and he did so, not looking at his hideously scarred body as he divested himself off his trousers and, almost naked, jumped into the cool water. The contrast of temperatures hit him harshly.

He quickly lost himself in the movement and let the waves carry him further from the shore, floating above the depths. Creatures he didn't really want to imagine touched his sides and legs as if caressing him for a moment, before they darted into obscurity. He knew that there were mermen and Kappas deep below him, and somewhere the Giant Squid…

…was that it?

Harry fully opened his eyes and took a better look at what had disturbed the water surface. A darker shape darted through a moonlit patch, not so far from him. It headed towards the shore and Harry, being who he was, followed.

The race finished in a draw at a place further up the shore from school than where he had originally started. By the time they climbed out of water, he had already ascertained that the shape was a boy, most likely a student, in a state of undress similar to his own. He had what looked like dark blonde hair but, considering that it was soaked, the original colour was probably somewhat lighter.

Silence, disturbed only by the sounds of the forest, reigned as they measured each other and Harry's eyes with horror traces the scars on the pale body in front of him… so similar to his own.

"M-Malfoy…" he whispered, hugging his chest. The other boy sneered and reached behind a rock for what turned out to be a folded shirt.

"Potter," he growled, but there was something uncertain in his voice. Harry identified it as fear instead of the anger that seemed to mark all of their conversation since the second one (the one on Hogwarts Express).

"If you tell anyone, I'll make you regret it like you've never regretted anything."

Harry very much doubted that something like that was even possible, but that wasn't the interesting part of Malfoy's statement. He didn't really consider telling anyone. Secterts of this sort… like scars, like fear, like someone you trusted (or were supposed to trust) betraying you so badly… it wasn't something to use as a weapon. As much as he disliked Malfoy, he wouldn't tell anyone…

"That goes both ways," he replied, not putting it past the boy to be hateful enough to ignore that basic courtesy Harry was willing to extend. "If you tell, I'll tell." Maybe, maybe if Malfoy sold him out like that, he would do the same. Screw all good intentions and screw all lame attempts at petty revenge for childish grievances…

"Sure, Potter. Like anyone would be interested in your scrawny body."

By this time Malfoy was fully clothed and bundled in his robe. With one last sneer he set out towards the castle, leaving a shivering Harry behind.

x

"Harry? Where are you going?"

Harry looked over at Ron and waved him off to go on.

"Just a run to the loo. Don't wait for me. I'll find you on the train." He didn't stay for long enough to hear a response, walked through the narrow secret passage and almost caught up to Malfoy, whom he had glimpsed disappearing there. He had to see this through before he got cold feet.

Years ago he had found a spell that could protect him from Vernon. There was only one (big) drawback – somebody had to cast it on him. Harry never told anyone what was happening in that house and he didn't know how to ask without divulging too much. He had considered playing it off as fear of Death Eaters, but a wizard strong enough could break the ward – anyone smart enough to cast the protection spell would also have been smart enough to see through his excuses.

He ambushed Malfoy in the bathroom, locked the door (just in case) and disarmed the Slytherin when he attempted to curse him.

"What do you want?!" Malfoy cried, afraid more than what fit the situation, which Harry didn't have time for, even though he understood that sentiment.

"Hold on and stop fidgeting. I swear on my magic that I don't intend to harm you." He felt a tingle as the vow came into effect and ignored Malfoy, who tried to protest quite vehemently.

"Intend and manage are two dif-"

The blonde shut up when Harry slammed a hand over his mouth and pressed him into a wall. The words of the incantation flowed from his mouth without a hitch. His wand traced several vital points of Malfoy's body. He felt the ward take, envelope the boy like a see-through cloak, seconds before he was thrown off and punched into his face.

"Don't _touch me_ ever again, Potter!"

Then Malfoy was gone and Harry have been left to scrape himself off the floor. He hadn't really expected anything different. Certainly he had not dared to hope that Malfoy would return the favour… but he felt a little better for the knowledge that he had helped.

He cast another layer of glamours on his face to stave off uncomfortable questions from Ron and Mione and ran through the hallways to catch the last carriage.

x

Harry let go of his trunk with a loud exhale. If he had to lug it upstairs instead of leaving it in the cupboard it would have been worse, but paradoxically he wished it were so. His wand, Cloak, Map and Album were all inside and it hurt almost physically to be parted from them – as much as it had hurt when Vernon had dragged him out of the station and his friends had vanished from sight.

"Move, boy!" Petunia screeched. Harry quickly got out of the way and didn't even wait to see her lock the cupboard. Slouching, he walked upstairs. He was only half-there as his feet lead him to the smallest bedroom, to the bed… as he sat down. The bars on the window were reinstalled. The cat-flap on the door, which was presently being slammed, locked and bolted, had been boarded up.

He hated himself for locking Hedwig's cage on occasions (even though it was only sometimes, when it was 'necessary'). At least he had had the presence of mind to let her out before he left Hogwarts. This way she could, possibly, come and take his letters without being held a prisoner…

Harry let out a harsh, bitter laugh. The sounds outside reversed, bolts came out and the lock clicked again.

"So you think I am a laughingstock?! Do you, boy?!"

Harry didn't even bother trying to cover. He just sat there on the bed, quivering ever so slightly, waiting for the blow to fall. When it did, he decided that it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Vernon was pudgy and all that fat served as a buffer. It never was too bad until he took a weapon to use.

When the interlude was over and Harry was left locked customarily alone in the room, with all bones unbroken and no perspective of permanent damage, there was bitter taste on his tongue. He actually thought about Malfoy and whether he had already found out that nobody can beat _him_ up anymore.

x

It was well into July and Harry lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling, mostly because he had neither the option nor the energy to do anything else. He was pretty sure he was dying – it was much more drawn out than it had been in the Chamber of Secrets, but otherwise fairly similar. He wasn't hungry anymore.

He had as many bruises from lying in the same position for too long as he had from the initial encounter with Vernon upon his return from Hogwarts. He was rather glad that he hadn't seen that poor excuse of a relative (or anyone else) since that time – which was most likely because of the smell. Even Vernon wasn't as hardened as to be able to ignore that.

So he lay and contemplated through the haze that was his thought-process just how likely it was that he would die before somebody deigned to come and check on him. He hadn't responded to any letters and it was getting a bit too long a time for it to seem like a funk to anybody who knew him at least a little. He wasn't the kind of person to forget something like that. He took the war seriously…

…pity that nobody took him seriously.

The ring of the doorbell sounded just after dark. It brought him from semi-consciousness closer to consciousness (as close as he could presently get). He felt lightheaded and the room spun, which was a feat, because he really didn't see much more than the ceiling. And he was lying. His back hurt – which was sort of good. It meant he was still alive and he could still feel at least some part of his body…

He was forced to give up on his reverie when shouting sounded from the basement.

"You're one of them freaks?!"

Harry would have smiled, but somehow his facial muscles disregarded that command. Someone came for him. Finally.

A higher voice replied something loud and sharp which he didn't quite understand. Then there was the obligatory Petunia's scream and two loud thuds… and then silence.

"Potter?"

Harry wasn't so sure he wanted to respond to somebody who addressed him as Potter, but the point was moot, because he couldn't respond anyway. The lowest stair creaked really quietly, which suggested that the rescuer was stepping lightly and didn't weigh much, meaning it was neither Snape (for which Harry was glad, although he would have preferred Snape to no one) nor Moody. He tried to remember who else would call him 'Potter' in a male voice. He considered McGonagall, but she didn't sound that masculine most of the time…

He gave up and resigned himself to fate, which he really hated, but had no means of fighting against right now.

"Potter?" Someone gasped just in front of his door. "Shit," the same voice said and it sounded vaguely familiar and not too antagonistic and Harry really couldn't place it.

"Potter, are you there?"

Harry tried to make a sound but managed to only hurt his throat worse and let out a slightly harsher breath. Not helpful.

The person outside the door decided not to wait until the doomsday and started blasting the locks, one by one. Seven tiny confined explosions later the door was open and Harry continued to stare at the ceiling, getting really curious.

"Oh fuck…" his rescuer said in a deadpan voice and came closer to the bed to take a look at him. "You've really done- well, somebody's really done a number on you, Potter."

That was rather stating the obvious, but Harry supposed that he looked (and smelled) really different from what he was normally like and therefore the rescuer needed time to get his head around it.

A series of muttered spells later, he smelled (and felt) somewhat better. He submitted without protests (which weren't any more possible to him now than they were a while ago) to whatever the person in his room was doing to him… which in the end turned out to be letting him drink a bit of water, then something vile, then another bit of water… He felt like puking but it passed quickly and then the world began to right itself.

"Just stay here until the potion kicks in. I'm going to find your things…"

The voice was different now, not so tentative, not nervous anymore… just contemplative and a little bit angry. Strangely enough, Harry was past all fear. The person who came for him wasn't a Death Eater and they probably didn't mean harm to him, and even if they did he couldn't quite bring himself to care.

"I've got your wand."

Harry found he could move now, not much, but enough to look at who was it that was helping him (or threatening him, he wasn't all that certain he understood the meaning of that last statemet). He couldn't see much without his glasses but what little he could see was enough for him to realise that the person in his bedroom at 4 Privet Drive in the house of the notoriously 'normal' Dursley family who was feeding him healing potions was Draco Malfoy.

"Thanks," he wheezed, considering it a fitting response given the situation. He tried to gauge just how probably a contingent of Death Eaters was hidden outside and then decided that, blast all, at least Malfoy wasn't torturing him yet.

The Slytherin Summoned Harry's glasses and handed them to him, totally ignoring the Restriction of Underage Magic.

"You'll get expelled," Harry mentioned neutrally once he could see sharply enough to observe Malfoy's expression. With a little help from cold, dry hands he sat up. His stomach didn't protest this time.

"Better expelled than dead. You'll get the luxury of decision, Golden Boy."

It took Harry a moment to put the hints together.

"Oh." He said. Malfoy seated himself on the (charmed clean) bed, pulled his knees to his chin and hugged his legs. Harry didn't yet feel strong enough to do that, so he simply let himself appreciate the eeriness of the situation. If he had to tell the truth, he didn't mind Malfoy there at all.

"Yeah, oh," Malfoy said with a weak attempt on sarcasm. "Look, Potter, the short story is that the Dark Lord busted out my Father, who in turn found out about the nifty little spell you put on me and I fled for my life. Now I've got nowhere to go, the Death Eaters are sort of after me and…"

"You think I can help you?" Harry inserted.

Malfoy's laugh had a hysterical edge to it.

"I thought I'd say 'thanks' before they kill me." It was, very obviously, a lie, but Harry guessed that anybody in Malfoy's situation needed a bit of normalcy to cling to.

"I don't know if I can," Harry admitted, continuing his line of thought and ignoring Malfoy's statement. "I mean, I don't even know if I can stand up right now."

There was a longer while of silence and then the Slytherin sneered. Harry expected some kind of remark on whether that was because he was stupid or because he was lame…

"I didn't… I… never thought it was this bad. I mean, you were always puny and wore rags on the off days, but… this…"

Harry got the gist of the statement and decided that it was Malfoy's attempt to find a way to excuse his being a prick, with perhaps a tiny hint of apology for something that wasn't worth the bother of forgiving in the first place. The important things always seemed to escape the idiot.

"Look, there's a place in London, but Dumbledore's the secret keeper-"

"Dumbledore left _you_ in this hellhole. I don't want to see the place he would put _me_ in."

While Harry didn't think that the Headmaster ever intended for him to come to harm, the truth was that he didn't care enough to make sure that Harry was alive, not to speak about the conditions he existed in.

"Okay," Harry said, and suddenly felt lighter, as if a weight fell off his shoulders. He didn't need to stay at the Dursleys. He didn't need to be beaten,; he didn't need to let anyone walk over him… if the price for that would be the last two years of magical education at Hogwarts, than that was what he would pay. "Okay. I'll go with you. We'll find a place to stay-"

"I don't have any money," Malfoy inserted and, Merlin, didn't that just sound ironic? Harry didn't care. He didn't think that he would have had enough motivation to run away if he was by himself, but if there were two of them… he wouldn't be alone.

"How do I know you won't sell me out?"

He might have just saved Harry's life, but Harry wasn't about to trust him that easily. Malfoy handed over the wand, which was a pretty good indication that Harry could… but still not good enough.

"I swear on my magic that I don't intend you any harm."

Harry, to his endless shame, went over it in his head to check if there were any loopholes. He could think of a few, but none applicable to Draco Malfoy. He shook the Slytherin's hand, which brought an odd feeling of changing history, and the tingle of energy signified that they were fairly safe in each other's immediate company. Now to think of what they were going to do.

"I've got money." Harry didn't know how much, but there was enough in his trust fund – and that was only the trust fund. Certainly enough to get them started, and in a year and a few weeks he would get the rest of his inheritance… though, to tell the truth, he wasn't quite optimistic enough to believe that he had a reason to worry about what was going to happen in a year.

"Okay," Malfoy replied. Harry thought they were both really out of it right then.

"I don't think I hate you anymore," Harry bestowed upon him the king of all non sequiturs. Malfoy chuckled a little and raised a Snape-like eyebrow. Well, it _was_ pretty obvious that they didn't hate each other. Disliked, perhaps, but in their current situation that seemed very immaterial. "If we get to London, we can go to Gringotts and then find a place to stay…" Getting to London would be the problem. Harry quite pragmatically decided that taking money from the Dursleys wasn't a crime, because they should have spent quite a lot of it on him. The government paid them for taking care of him, after all…

"I can Apparate," Malfoy offered, and another hitch in the plan disappeared. They were going to be alright.

x

They went in and out of Gringotts without being recognised by anyone except the goblins. Harry convinced Malfoy to get a room in Muggle hostel – he was inclined to believe that Tom the keeper of the Leaky Cauldron wouldn't have ratted them out, but it was just safer this way.

Malfoy seemed to in the end decide that he liked the room, despite the fact that they were forced to take one with a double bed. They shared the space without any arguments, mostly because they were too tired and too overwhelmed by the seriousness of the decision they have made to quarrel about something inconsequential.

"We should get you some food," Malfoy said when Harry removed his shirt. The Gryffindor felt better than he had felt in a week, but the fact was that he was operating on artificial energy. He felt too tired to go hunting for food in the middle of the night in a not quite well lit part of London.

"Tomorrow," Harry mumbled, sinking onto his half of the bed – with his back to the wall.

"I have one more potion," Malfoy muttered back, pulling the cover up to his face. Harry considered setting up a ward, but his wand was rigged – must have been, really – and he didn't particularly want to advertise their current location to the Ministry. After he let Malfoy Apparate him, despite knowing that neither of them had a licence, they could even call themselves fugitives. Not that they would incur anything worse than a hefty fine… yet…

"Tomorrow. G'night."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"Is this alright?" Harry asked Malfoy, who curiously looked into every room. The flat was tiny and dark – on the third floor of a shady building with one exit leading to Muggle London and the other to Knockturn Alley.

"Look, Potter, I'm used to a Manor. Nothing you can provide will get anywhere near my 'alright' standards."

The blonde sighed and sat down on a sofa that could, at best, be called structurally unsound. It creaked ominously.

"I…" Harry cut himself off and sighed instead. There was nothing he could say. He had nothing to apologise for and he didn't think that any amount of empty words could make Malfoy feel better. "We can continue looking," he offered instead. That was all he could do. It surprised him how much it bothered him that Malfoy was so upset.

"No," the Slytherin replied resolutely. "There's everything we really need and…"

"You just have to whine about it, don't you?"

"Prat," Malfoy grumbled but didn't disprove Harry's statement. He propped his elbow against his knee and rested his chin in his palm. Harry subconsciously moved towards him and came within reach before he realised that Malfoy wasn't really his friend and they haven't cleared the air of all antagonism yet. He stopped, uncertain about what to do.

Malfoy solved the conundrum for him by gripping his wrist and pulling him closer. He touched his forehead to Harry's gaunt stomach.

Harry was too perplexed to react to this apart from touching Malfoy's shoulder.

"I'm not scared," the blonde proclaimed in the spirit of untruth. Harry didn't tell him just what he thought about that statement.

"Is it going to be alright?" Harry asked, meaning the flat rather than generally the situation. He had no idea whether Malfoy understood what he meant, but the Slytherin only nodded and he didn't feel like getting into a long and complicated debate about it.

x

"I don't have any clothes," Malfoy proclaimed around the noontime.

"You can-"

"If you're going to suggest that I can borrow yours, save your breath. I would sooner go out naked than touch one of those filthy rags."

"I have school uniforms," Harry offered. Malfoy, true to himself, scoffed.

"Good on you, Golden Boy." Harry wondered if the insult really lost its bite or if he was hearing things. Malfoy was still testy and prickly and whiny, but he simply wasn't the smart-assed bastard he used to be, as if that façade had crumbled with Harry's discovery of the abused boy underneath. Maybe it was mutual.

"We're trying not to get caught," Malfoy explained relatively patiently, "by Dumbledore, the Dark Lord and any of their sycophants. If you go out in a school uniform, can I help you paint a bull's eye on your back?"

"What do you suggest then?" Harry asked with resignation that was new and unfamiliar. He subconsciously felt that he should have gotten angry, but he just couldn't muster the enthusiasm.

"You'll go out in your rags and buy us something presentable. Or half-way presentable – this is you we're talking about."

"I'm not going anywhere alone," Harry stated resolutely.

"And I'm-"

"I've got an Invisibility Cloak."

"-not-"

There was an almost audible crash as the realisation hit Malfoy.

"_What_?!"

"An Invisibility Cloak," Harry repeated dispassionately.

"I hate you," Malfoy said simply, although the tone of voice belied the statement. He sat down on the bed – one double bed, even though there were some vague plans to transfigure it into two and push those towards the opposite walls of the bedroom – rather as though his knees gave out. "I hate you so much…"

"You'll go with me. Under the Cloak."

Malfoy nodded and, while Harry did have some doubts about whether he had heard that last statement, took the silvery fabric Harry passed to him. A couple of simple glamours to hide their identities was cast and they were ready to go.

Half an hour and one attempt to throw them out of Madam Malkin's (until Harry proved that he _did_ have money) later each of them was an owner of a set of undergarments, shirts, trousers, socks and robes. Malfoy insisted on buying each of them a hooded cloak despite the fact that it was the middle of July. He chose a dark red one, following the – correct, in Harry's opinion – logic that no one in either right or wrong mind would ever expect a person in a _red_ cloak to be Draco Malfoy. Harry himself decided to forgo logic and buy everything in black until Malfoy warned him that it was a really, really bad idea, because it would be ridiculously easy to get mistaken for a Death Eater. In the end he didn't get a choice because Malfoy decided they would go for style and irony and forced him to get a green one.

The afternoon was a harsh, sink-or-swim kind of education for Harry. They visited several people whom Malfoy knew, but who didn't know Malfoy well enough to recognise him when he wore a hood. In the end they had to gamble and reveal themselves to an ugly one-eyed half-hag, who sold Harry a wand with a harpy tendon for the core and took off the tracking and restraining charms on his original one. It cost far more than he had anticipated, but Malfoy okayed it and he really had no idea about the standard costs of illegal goods and deeds on the black market. Since a binding oath of non-disclosure was a part of the deal (a bilateral one, protecting both sides), Harry paid and kept his mouth closed.

"She gave you a discount," the Slytherin muttered when they came out of the shady room. "I don't think she likes the Dark Lord."

Harry thought it made sense, because Voldemort hated so-called half-breeds. He had never considered it, but there was a good reason why a large part of the Dark contingent wouldn't have taken Voldemort's offer of alliance. Maybe he should be the one to make a better offer… No. He didn't feel capable of leading a motion of that magnitude. DA took all he had and now he was faced with the Law Enforcement and Death Eaters at the same time – he had no mental capacity left to think about other players on the chessboard.

"What about you?" It was a question that he felt had been hanging in between them since they had met in Privet Drive, but had been left unvoiced until now. Malfoy stopped in his tracks and scowled.

"What about me?" he spat.

"How do you feel about Voldemort?"

Draco shuddered.

"Gods above, do you want to get us killed, you idiot?!"

Harry didn't realise what was the problem. Sure, he had expected to piss off Malfoy by saying Riddle's chosen name, but certainly this reaction was exaggerated…

"Did you stop to think for one second where we are and who might be listening?"

Now the anger made sense. Harry cursed his lack of forethought – he could briefly understand what vexed Snape so much on Gryffindors – while Draco let out a profanity-riddled rant which, quite conspicuously, omitted Harry's name.

"Can we go back now?" he asked, feeling too tired to withstand another encounter with someone that could kill him and hide his body without anyone ever finding out what happened to him, if he said the wrong word. Knockturn Alley was a cruel place and believed in the survival of the fittest, while the definition of the fittest was varying between the richest, the cleverest, the fastest, the most powerful and best liars. Harry didn't feel like he belonged into either of the categories although Malfoy might have made the last one…

"Not yet. There's one more place to visit."

Harry suppressed a groan.

"Okay," he said more to himself than to the Slytherin. "Fine. Yeah. That'll be fine."

Malfoy could plainly see his distress and took pity.

"I'll be dealing with this one. I know a way to make money and get potions. We'll need potions."

Harry wasn't about to argue that point – not when it was a potion that had recently saved his life. He didn't have aversion to potions as such; his problem was the association to Snape and hours of belittling, humiliation and bias.

Malfoy led him into an Apothecary and left him looking at the shelves of potions and ingredients while he went to the store-owner and haggled with him about something. By the time he came back he looked rather like the Kneazle that ate the Snidget and _hummed_. Harry noticed a bag in his hand and had to resort to biting his tongue to prevent himself from asking what was in it.

"Your ridiculous luck must have rubbed off," Malfoy grumbled as they ascended the dingy staircase to 'their' flat. "Travis offered to buy potions off me for twice the price anyone without a licence for brewing could ask."

"What kind of potions?"

"Do you really want to know?" the blonde questioned while Harry unlocked the inbuilt wards to let them in. It was nowhere near enough protection, but at least their things weren't stolen while they were out.

"Yeah. We'll need to put up more wards."

Malfoy threw their bags onto the rotting sofa and enlarged them, digging in for something or other that he bought while Harry was otherwise occupied.

"Poisons, mostly. And low level truth potions. In the current climate, those are in demand. We'll put up some tonight."

Watching Malfoy saunter into the bathroom and close the door behind him, Harry realised that he shouldn't have felt so comfortable around the boy. They had despised each other for years and still weren't truly friendly, but they understood each other ludicrously well. He didn't recall ever having had a conversation like this – honest, sarcastic and informative at the same time – with anyone before. Ever.

He, with quite a shock, found that he liked it.

x

Malfoy came out just in time for supper, which was to be vegetable soup. Harry put out the fire, transferred the pot to the table and looked up; it turned out to be a good idea because otherwise he would have probably let go of the pot in shock.

Malfoy stood in the doorway, wearing a plain gray cotton night suit and sporting _black_ hair.

"What the…"

Harry stood there frozen, gaping as the suddenly strange boy walked up almost to him, checked the cupboards and, after ascertaining that they really didn't have any dishes, transfigured two bowls and two spoons.

"Are you going to eat?" Malfoy asked nonchalantly, sitting down and ladling himself a full dish of the soup, trusting Harry's skill as a cook which he had no real idea of.

"I thought you were maniac about your hair," he managed to formulate, falling rather hard on the bench. There was something wrong with a world in which Malfoy had black hair and at first sight looked disconcertingly like Sirius. Fortunately, the two had a completely different facial structure, so apart from the hair and eye colour Harry didn't really feel as though he was staring at an apparition of his godfather.

"I have always been particular about appearance in general," Malfoy responded haughtily. Harry, however, noticed that the pose was a cover for emotional turmoil underneath, which he could understand well enough. When he felt like that, he became brooding; Ron usually got angry; Hermione would bury herself under books. Malfoy got all prissy. It made sense, especially with the way his hand was shaking so badly that he hardly got any amount of the soup to his mouth.

"Well… it looks a lot better than if it was red."

Malfoy let go of the spoon and began to laugh hysterically. Harry didn't know what to do with that, so he let him work through it. Eventually, it passed.

"Gods, Potter, that was a disgusting image."

"You won't try to get me to dye my hair bottle-blond, will you?" he asked, finishing his portion and allowing himself a ladle more, hoping that his stomach could deal with it.

"I'll have you know there was nothing 'bottle' about my hair colour!" In the following while of silence, Malfoy seemed slightly calmer – definitely enough to be able to eat. Harry considered the conversation a success and went to wash the bowl, seriously considering staying in the room just to watch what Malfoy would do with his once he had finished eating. The disadvantage of that idea was that it would probably be taken as an offer to clean after him and Harry would be stuck doing it.

"No," Malfoy said in between two mouthfuls. It took Harry a few seconds to decipher what he meant by it and then he reacted by letting out a mocking relieved gasp. "You'll absolutely have to change your eye-colour, though."

He silently agreed with the statement, but that didn't mean he liked it.

"Would it be enough to glamour them?"

Malfoy sighed and stood, charmed the dish and utensil clean (upon which Harry felt like banging his head against the nearest hard surface) and conceded.

"For now. But we'll have to find something safer if we intend to keep ahead of… everyone."

It was the first time in his life that Harry let Malfoy aim his wand at him. It was a little bit like bungee-jumping – the awareness of danger and a deliberate plunge, the fear, the faith, the exhilaration. He felt a slight tingling around his eyes and the frame of his glasses disappeared. He could still feel them, but the rims were unmistakably invisible and Harry suspected that to anyone else, so were the lenses.

"Wonderful," he grumbled. "Do you know how hard it's to keep track of this thing normally? Now I'll never find it!"

Malfoy actually giggled all the way to the bathroom, where he pointed his wand at himself (Harry had followed, curious about other changes in the Slytherin's apparel) and executed the same process. With black eyes, black hair and white skin, he looked creepy… almost as creepy as the newly-resurrected Voldemort had looked, but incomparably more…aesthetic. At least he had a nose.

Then Harry caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and declared the two of them a couple of freaks – his colouring was identical to Malfoy's, only he had the borderline disgusting thinness of his face on top of it.

"We look like Snape's sons." That really said it all.

"That's the look I was aiming for," Malfoy concluded, feigning satisfaction. Apparently he wasn't really comfortable with how they looked, but he was Slytherin enough to just suck it up and assimilate. "That's what I looked like for Travis," he added.

"He would kill me if he found out," Harry remarked, meaning the Potions Master, not the apothecary. Snape probably would. If he wouldn't have died of a heart-attack.

"That makes it all the more fun," Malfoy threw back and departed, leaving Harry to turn off the Illuminare and follow him to the bedroom. They hadn't gotten around to dividing the bed yet and the wards held precedence.

"You're crazy."

"No more than you are," Malfoy retorted, glaring balefully over the short distance between them as each of them sat at their side of the bed.

"I can't argue with you when you're not being rational," Harry protested.

"I can't be rational. I… I'd go mad."

"You're already there."

"Not really."

"Shut up, Draco."

If there was a response to that, he didn't hear it, because he fully submerged himself in the casting.

x

Harry woke up, sat up and… suppressed a scream when long strands of black hair fell into his face.

"Malfoy!" he yelled, not bothering to lower his voice after they had thoroughly isolated and silenced the place yesterday. Even if there had been any eavesdropping spells or devices installed, the connection to their originators would have been severed.

He got no response, so he crawled out of the bed, spent five minutes searching for his glasses, and padded to the kitchen, where from he established that his flat mate was in the shower, singing – undoubtedly deliberately just so that he could pretend that he didn't hear Harry's reaction.

Not that Harry was reacting all that much. He never really contemplated letting his hair grow. It made sense to get rid of yet another trademark, but it posed its own set of problems. Before, he could use his fringe to hide the scar. Now he had no fringe to speak of.

He ascertained that the longest strands reached to his shoulder blades, which made them several inches longer than even Malfoy's hair. He sort of wished he had a mirror so he would have an idea what he looked like. Fortunately, Malfoy had hexed the bathroom mirror into silence first thing, so there would at least be no disparaging comments (if the blo- black-haired idiot tried to make any, Harry had a whole new store of smart retorts).

"Are you about finished?" he yelled, wondering if it would be acceptable to punish Malfoy by forcing him to make his on breakfast. Then he decided that he knew what starving was like and wouldn't doom Malfoy to it just for being a dodgy underhanded bastard.

"No!"

"If you're not out in five minutes, I'm walking in on you!"

He didn't think the threat was really valid, but apparently Malfoy was very shy. He let out a girlish squeak and shouted: "Don't you dare!"

Harry laughed himself silly over scrambled eggs.

x

"I'm going to start on the potions," Malfoy said after breakfast and left the kitchen. Harry finished his piece of bread, cleaned the transfigured plates and considered going out to buy some real dishes. In the end he figured that they would need money (of which he didn't have nearly as much as he had thought) later and they should save it for things they couldn't create.

Then he spent two hours transfiguring plates, bowls, pots, pans, goblets, mugs and even jiggers. He hesitated about cups and in the end crafted a pair, one green with an S for stupid and one red with a G for genius and proclaimed himself pathetically stuck on House prejudices. Malfoy wasn't stupid at all, nor was he slimy or a snake. Harry, on the other hand, wasn't genius, wasn't a 'Golden Boy' and definitely wasn't great, even though that was a fairly frequently featured epithet, especially in the presence of a younger Ginny Weasley or any Creevey of any age.

He put the stuff away into one of the cupboards and went to check on the blonde – or not blonde, as it were – bastard. Trust Draco to destroy a perfectly good alliteration by dying his hair.

"What are you doing?" Malfoy barked at him as soon as he appeared on the threshold to the lab.

"What does it look like?" Harry shot right back. Malfoy was leaning over a cauldron and patiently stirring counter clockwise.

"Like you're bugging me when I need to concentrate."

"I'm watching you work," Harry replied easily. Malfoy ignored him after that, so he walked in, shut the door to prevent draught and sat on the right counter, which wasn't being used. The room was poky and smelled faintly of mould, but it lacked the typical potion-stains of a used laboratory. Whatever it had been serving as before, it wasn't its original purpose…

"Come here and stir this, Potter," Malfoy said suddenly and abandoned the cauldron. It threatened to bubble over, so Harry jumped off the counter, snatched the ladle and continued the counter clockwise motion before they had to get a new floor. Only when the surface of the emerald liquid was once again calm he found time to glare over his shoulder at the boy who busied himself preparing ingredients.

"Why me? It's potions!" he protested belatedly.

"Yeah, and you're nowhere near as pitiful at them as Snape likes to proclaim. Get over here and grind this."

They switched; Malfoy took the ladle and Harry the mortar. The shells were a fine white powder and the dandelion root was added in neat, identical pieces before he even realised what was going on. They were working together, on potions of all things, and as long as Harry submitted to Malfoy's leading they were working seamlessly.

x

Around noon Harry left Malfoy in the lab to finish the potion, went to scrub his hands until he was sure he wouldn't poison their food and moved over to the kitchen to start on the stew.

Malfoy emerged within twenty minutes, went through the cleaning procedure Snape had drummed into their heads when they were eleven and joined Harry in the kitchen in a pose conspicuously similar to the one Harry had assumed in the potions lab. On the other hand, Harry had a sneaking feeling that apart from the previous two days, Malfoy had never seen a kitchen that up close.

"Chop these," he said to the blonde and abandoned the carrots and a transfigured knife (whereupon he made a mental note to get at least real weapons) in favour of selecting the seasoning.

"But-"

"Come on, git, it's like potions… Just the result is edible and doesn't taste like old socks."

Harry had been correct – as long as it was clear which one of them was the leader in a given situation, they could work together perfectly. Not even Ron and Hermione ever reached this level of efficiency with him. It was as if they knew each other so well that they could anticipate where the other was and where he was going to be in the next moment. It was, actually, a lot like their functioning at Hogwarts.

In the end he left Malfoy to finish it while he was making tea. It had been almost fun, in the same way as brewing in the morning had almost been fun. They didn't insult each other (they didn't speak at all if it wasn't necessary), critique was sparse and advice given when needed. Harry was actually willing to continue helping Malfoy with potions.

He spent a minute over the cups and wondered if he should re-transfigure them, because it sort of felt as if he wanted to keep on with the House distinction, while that was the thing that he would miss least of Hogwarts (aside from murder attempts, autocracy and gossip). Eventually he took the green cup with S for saviour and left Draco the red one with G for git. If he could deal with a red cloak, he could also deal with a red cup. He could tell that the boy hated it, but they both kept their mouths shut and survived through a joyfully silent lunch.

x

The next morning at half past six they stood in front of the Apothecary, Draco wearing the red hooded cloak and Harry invisible. Banging on the door was responded to from inside with an expletive. Harry was glad that the shop-keeper didn't have a wand trained at them.

The disposition of the man changed abruptly when he realised who they were. He actually muttered something that could have been taken as an apology.

"Next time come to the backdoor."

Draco looked quite happy at that – as happy as a Malfoy could look with the icy mask of haughty indifference on their face. Nevertheless, it meant that they have found a trade they could make their living in. Apparently, the potions they had provided have passed the inspection and were going on the shelf.

They didn't get any money for the work, but Travis gave them another – a bigger one – bag of ingredients and sent them on their merry way.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

x

"Get up, Harry!"

Harry grumbled and rolled over onto a spot that was colder than he expected. Sunrays hit his closed eyes and he twisted his neck trying to avoid them.

"Nngh," he said succinctly. Draco laughed at him.

"Come on, come on, Golden Boy!"

Harry sat up and, with his eyes still closed, threw the pillow approximately in the direction of the leering boy.

"Hey!"

"You should've left me alone!" Harry grumbled and patted around the bedside to locate his invisible glasses. He has become accustomed to them in the past weeks, just as the sight of Draco didn't make him uncomfortable anymore and their fights and insults were all in the spirit of companionship.

"What's the day today?" he asked, squinting out of the window at the dark alley two stories beneath them.

"Funny you should ask," Draco replied coolly and the humour and mock-annoyance was suddenly lost. "It's the 31st."

Harry had known that he had missed his birthday – he didn't care much, past the fact that his friends' letters had been unable to reach him – but he hadn't realised that the school year was already about to start.

"What…"

"-are we going to do?" Draco inserted when it was obvious that Harry didn't intend to finish the question. "Well, you're going to get up and make breakfast and I'm going to pack the potions from yesterday. Then we'll go down, sell the potions to Travis, pick up more ingredients and…"

Harry got the message. Nothing was changing. Draco didn't want to do to Hogwarts – to tell the truth, he probably wasn't financially stable enough to go to Hogwarts. Harry didn't much yearn to return there either. He missed his friends… a little… but he also felt that freedom and independent survival suited him better than the gilded cage the Headmaster used to keep him in.

He climbed out of the bed and Summoned his clothes – which was another perk of the independence. No one attempted to regulate his use of magic. He felt responsible enough to be able to judge when and what for to use magic.

"What do you want for breakfast?" he asked, pulling on his shirt. Draco pelted him with the pillow and ducked through the door. Once he was safely ensconced in the potions lab, he called out something that Harry loosely interpreted as ham and eggs.

At quarter to seven they were outside, shrouded in their cloaks (they had given up on pretending that there was only one of them sometime in the end of July, when a pickpocket tried to mug Draco and an invisible Harry was forced to take action to save their savings) – one green, one red.

When they arrived at the back door of the shop, it became obvious that something was wrong. Shouting was coming from inside the building and the door itself was half-open. Travis wasn't stupid enough to leave free access to anyone.

Harry charged in, like a typical Gryffindor, without sparing a thought to what might have been going on. He found a black-clad burly man wielding his wand at Travis.

"Cru-"

"Expelliarmus!" he shouted. The force of the spell shoved the man backwards and ripped the wand from his fingers, but rendered him far from helpless. He leaped forwards and Harry didn't have time to defend himself, only to dodge the attack-

"Avada Kedavra!"

A body hit the floor with a loud thud and silence descended.

"Luke…" Harry said finally, using the code they've agreed upon. The ex-Slytherin looked at him impassively. He wished there was something he could do, but right now everything depended on Travis.

"I…" the man said after Harry had been staring at him for almost half a minute. "Thank you."

"Was he a Death Eater?"

Travis nodded.

"My brother," he clarified. It was dangerous to trust someone so much – Travis was apparently as shaken by the occurrence as Draco. Harry didn't feel all there either, but from the three of them he was probably feeling most rational.

"Will you be alright?" It was a strange question to ask of a brief acquaintance, but Harry didn't know the proper protocol of addressing someone whose brother had just been killed for attempting to assault them.

Travis nodded decisively.

"Don't worry about that too much. He got what he was asking for." The apothecary sounded a little sad, but the initial shock was wearing off and he became more like a resident of the Knockturn Alley – emotionless, untouchable. "Get out of here now. You haven't seen him and you have no idea that anything happened."

Harry gripped Draco's hand and dragged him out of the shop, leaving the bag of potions there but determined to come back the next day.

"Luke!"

Draco didn't react at all. His feet carried him all by themselves. Harry stopped in a deeper shadow and raised his hand to strike him, but that action finally ripped the boy from the trance and Harry wasn't forced to resort to violence.

"Not here…" Draco whispered.

They clung to each other all the way upstairs, through the door and separated – with great reluctance – only to throw off the cloaks. Draco bypassed the sofa and aimed straight for the bed, where he sank into the covers and started shaking.

Harry knew that he had killed Quirrel, but didn't remember the killing itself. He figured that it must hit anyone quite hard – the knowledge that they had killed, especially when they had killed using one of the vilest curses in existence… but it didn't change the fact that he believed Draco to have done the right thing.

Travis was an alright bloke, on the honest side of practical, and Harry had learnt not to give much stoke on useless sensibilities after Pettigrew raised Voldemort. Granted, it would have been easier to accept if Draco had used any other curse or even a physical weapon…

"Draco?" he asked uncertainly, sitting on the side of the bed. They have never come around to divide it and didn't particularly care about that, except for the rare morning when one of them woke up to a foot being pressed into some uncomfortable part of his body.

"I k-killed him," Draco stated with an odd mixture of awe and terror.

"You did," Harry admitted. Draco rolled onto his back and looked up at him quizzically, as if there was some simple answer Harry could give him. "You'll be okay. Travis is okay." That was simple… Past those facts, however, started the complications of morality, lawfulness, incrimination and self-hatred, and Harry very much didn't want to get into that.

"B-but…"

"You defended me," Harry said, gripping Draco's shoulders. "Thank you." He didn't quite recognise himself in that statement, but he supposed that life in Knockturn Alley was bound to change one. So was life with Draco Malfoy…

When Draco's hand grasped his shirt, he realised that they have been staring at (or, in his case, through) each other from quite a small distance. He let Draco pull him yet closer and put their mouths together. He didn't mind at all when the hand from his shirt moved _under_ his shirt, nor did he mind Draco licking his lips and inserting his tongue into Harry's mouth…

Draco rolled them over and continued kissing Harry, who belatedly realised that his hands were moving on their own accord, stroking the body that was now pinning him to the mattress. He was a bit scared, but the feeling was familiar and he associated it with Draco - the awareness of danger and a deliberate plunge, the fear, the faith, the exhilaration.

"If you want me to stop, tell me now."

Harry was far more innocent in this way then he wanted anybody to know, but he felt he could trust Draco, he could give up that bit of control and it would, in the end, turn out to be alright. The short of it was that Draco felt good and he wanted that.

x

Harry wiped a trickle of sweat from Draco's forehead before it got into his eyes and buried his face in the heaving chest. To say that he had no regrets wouldn't be really accurate – it was more like he was bemused, nervous, still a little bit scared, but at the same time happy and hopeful.

Draco forced him to look up and kissed him again. Harry wondered how he could have ever disliked this boy.

The air was filled with gentle golden glow, which he had thought to be the sunlight, but now that he could put two ideas together in his head he found that it wasn't quite so.

"Congratulations," Draco said in a deadpan voice that sharply contrasted with his expression. "You're bonded."

Harry let the silence reign while he tried to absorb that information. Bonded. It wasn't supposed to… well, it didn't normally happen. They had been warned about that kind of thing… It was rare for magic to do the bonding by itself, without any spells or rituals.

"What were you thinking?" Draco asked quietly. There was no point in getting angry about it. They had no idea about what kind of bond it was in the first place and therefore wouldn't know where to begin if they wanted to break it… which was a whole other matter. Would they even want to break it? Why?

"I just don't want to be alone…" Harry muttered, being as honest as he could in his own puzzled state.

"Well, you're not going to be alone as long as I'm alive. That's not a whole lot of time, but you can't have everything."

Definitely not in the mood for pessimism and sarcasm, Harry rolled them over again so that he was on the bottom. Draco's longish black hair was falling into his face; the eerie black eyes staring at him expectantly.

Harry kissed him, because it was simpler than getting into a debate. He was quite content where he was – he had given into the pull of the desire to comfort Draco, but found that he was equally comforted in the end. If it felt like this now, what would it be like with someone he actually loved?

Draco removed his weight from Harry's body, yawned and closed his eyes.

"Shit," Harry muttered, idly watching specks of dust dance in the remnants of the golden light. "Ron's going to kill me."

"I've actually managed to forget about the Weasel for a moment. Thank you for reminding me," Draco sniped caustically. For some totally irrational reason it made Harry smile.

"Doesn't matter anyway…"

"What?" The ex-Slytherin actually bothered to open his eyes at that.

"Doesn't matter," Harry repeated, settling himself so that he could put his arm around the pale belly he got in his sight. "We're not going back."

"But…" Draco absently weaved his fingers through Harry's hair. It felt awfully nice. "I thought you loved them."

"I care for them." Harry really wasn't sure about the love aspect. Dumbledore spouted a lot of dogma related to it, but it seemed about as reliable as Divination. "We can go somewhere abroad where they don't extradite criminals and send letters…" he suggested. "Is there someone you'd like to owl?"

"Snape," Draco said. It didn't really surprise Harry. It was sort of pathetic that neither of them had a family they would care to contact. Harry would, maybe, send an owl to the Weasleys and Hermione. Draco only had his ex-teacher.

"Okay," he said and, doped on endorphins as he was, he also believed it. "We'll be okay."


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Thank you for your feedback! Keep it up!

Chapter 4

x

"Morning, Jim, Luke," Travis said, letting them in. It was well into October and the weather was getting colder day by day. This morning when they woke up it was raining.

With the rims of their cloaks weighed down with water, they walked into the back of the store.

"Morning, Travis," Harry said, while Draco settled for a nod of greeting.

"I have saved yesterday's Prophet for you," the man informed them and pointed to a cluttered table. Harry went for it, skimmed the front page and paled.

"Travis?"

Both the apothecary and Draco looked up at the sound of his voice. He stared back, trying to gauge what the Hell it was supposed to mean. The headline read: _Harry Potter – Dead?_

"Is he?" Travis asked pragmatically. Draco scoffed and snitched the obligatory bag of fresh ingredients.

"Might as well be. And you'll be too if you sell him out." The boy sounded quite fierce and a man who had seen him kill without hesitation should have been intimidated. Travis, however, merely waved the threat off.

"You're earning me a lot of money, boys." It was apparent that he had guessed Draco's identity, too – it wasn't a secret that Narcissa Malfoy was allegedly distraught about her only son having gone missing. Draco had been quite vocal about that particular interview a few weeks ago. It seemed that a disappearance was about the only thing that could have made his mother take notice of him.

"Are we?" Draco asked, touching upon a fact that seemed rather insignificant to Harry. Travis smirked.

"Indeed. It seems that the potions you have been brewing since… _that day_… are quite more potent than the usual I am selling. I have customers asking specifically for J&L brand."

"We have a brand?" Draco asked, surprised at least as much as Harry was, but considerably faster at spotting opportunities.

"You do."

"And are we getting profits from it?"

"You are. I will make more money by selling your potions than I would make by selling you. And the likelihood of me being killed in the process is smaller."

Draco grimaced, but nodded. Apparently, a continued survival was better than a few Galleons a week more. Harry simply considered it another reason to leave the country.

"Thanks, Travis. Is there anything specific you would like us to deliver?"

"Do you think you're up to Veritaserum?"

x

Two cloaked figures with their heads pulled up sat in the summer garden of the Fortescue's under an Umbrella Spell, eating a banana Split and Strawberry Sundae respectively. They weren't truly worried that someone would recognise them, but the cloaks made people weary and they, in turn, were left alone. It worked out well for them.

"…and I thought that the day after tomorrow it might be done, so we can sell it and get another batch of ingredients. No point going there twice in two days."

"I don't know-"

"Jimmy!"

The Sundae-eating hooded figure laughed.

"But I'm going to be bored-"

"You can finish the Boil-cure potion."

"That is – what? A first year potion? I-"

"I wouldn't want to give you something too difficult for you," the first figure stated dryly before dissolving into a fit of chuckles.

"Honestly, Luke. I never thought I would see you high on sugar. I shudder to think what you would be like if I actually let you buy alcohol."

The mood suddenly froze and they both turned to their ice-creams with heavy sighs.

"It's not safe," Draco said in a small voice.

"It's not."

They finished their desserts in silence and left, walking side by side. Wearing green and red they couldn't have been mistaken for Death Eaters, nevertheless, there were many suspicious glares cast their ways.

"When are we leaving?" Draco asked once they re-entered Knockturn Alley.

"Sometime next week. I first thought we could go to France… but I don't speak French."

"I want to go to Canada," Draco decided with the self-confidence of someone who always got what they wanted.

"Why Canada?" Harry asked, holding a door open for his companion.

"Because they speak English there."

Harry was about to ask why not the United States then, but he never got the chance.

A couple of masked, black-robed men came bounding down the stairs. They attacked on sight and only Draco's reflexive reaction saved Harry from a curse that, after being redirected, blew out a chunk of the wall. Harry, protected under Draco's shielding spell, Stunned one of them and disarmed the other, who a second later fell to Draco's hex.

"Bind them. We'll leave them in Diagon and get the Hell out of here."

Harry complied without any objections, while Draco watched for any other Death Eaters who might have accompanied these. He wondered whether they should check on Travis, but decided that he didn't care enough about the man to risk it.

"Are we going up?" he asked.

They both looked into the shadows of the staircase, trying to see through them if there was anyone hidden there, waiting, lurking…

"Yes," Draco decided. Each of them Levitated one of the bodies, keeping them in front of them as human shields. It was too much to hope that a Death Eater wouldn't curse their own to get through to them, but at least there was someone to get into the way of that one initial spell.

They got up to the door of the flat without interception. The wards had been cracked, but had held through the assault and were still up and buzzing. Harry sighed, relieved, and let them in.

Draco retrieved the unfinished Veritaserum from the lab. It was highly poisonous in this stage, but likely to get the truth out of the subject. Harry didn't feel like arguing with Draco just to save two people who had tried to kill them.

"Pry his mouth open."

Harry complied again. He ripped the mask off of a face that might have belonged to some of Crabbe's relatives and stuck the blade of a knife between his teeth. Draco fed him a spoonful of the silvery-green liquid.

"Why did you come here?"

"S-sent…" the Crabbe look-alike groaned in pain and his face scrunched into an even uglier grimace. "The potion-makers… recruit potion-makers…"

Harry sighed and rubbed his face. No matter where he went, no matter what name he used, he always did something that caught the attention of the local villain.

"Who sent you?"

"The Dark Lord."

Draco cursed and vented his anger by breaking the Death Eater's nose. There was a positive side to the mess – the Dark Lord didn't really know who they were – but the negative feelings were currently prevalent.

"What are Voldemort's plans?" Harry asked, hoping that the wizard wasn't in such a bad state that he wouldn't have been able to answer.

"Hogwarts… take the school… take Ministry… rule…"

"When does he want to take Hogwarts?" Draco asked, shushing Harry, who with an over-dramatic gesture motioned him to, by all means, continue.

"All Hallows' Eve…"

"When does he want to take the Ministry?"

"By Christmas… Dumbledore out of the way… easy…" He heaved and spat several mouthfuls of blood. Harry cringed, but continued watching with his wand aimed at the bound Death Eater, just in case.

"Why does he need potion-makers?" he suggested the next question.

"W-wards… corruh…"

Harry could see the exact moment when the man died. It was weird and he reached out for Draco automatically. They laced their fingers and clasped their hands gently, taking and providing determination at the same time. It was going to be okay.

"You're going to be a hero and try to save them, aren't you?"

Harry shook himself and met Draco's black eyes.

"Save whom?" he asked simply. He definitely wasn't going to try and save any Death Eaters. He was ticked off too bad to find it in himself to be merciful or other such inanity.

"Hogwarts. Dumbledore. Your friends."

It has been a long time since Harry had felt so torn. The vision of Ron, Hermione and Ginny being slaughtered, Bellatrix Crucio-ing Neville into insanity… it was unbearable. On the other hand, he had promised Draco to go with him. He would abandon Hogwarts sooner than Draco, even regardless of the free-formed bond between them.

"So…" Draco noted with a sigh, "we're going to Hogwarts."

x

"There are weak spots," Draco concluded after they finished their third walk around the perimeter of Hogwarts wards. "Neither of us has the skill to break in, but the Dark Lord's Potions Masters undoubtedly do."

"Could we reinforce those?" Harry asked, pulling the other boy in the direction of the cave Sirius used to hide in. They have agreed to try and avoid being seen around or in Hogsmeade, and the cave at least promised a dry rock to sit on.

"Jimmy," Draco replied with exasperation, "Crabbe and Goyle would have broken through our wards in less than an hour. How long the Hell do you imagine they would withstand a Master?"

Harry, ever optimistic, imagined that maybe five minutes.

"And Dumbledore isn't doing anything…" In the three days since the anonymous warning they had sent the Headmaster, not one change on the wards was made.

"We can't stop the Dark Lord this way."

True to the Gryffindor within, Harry disregarded the 'we can't stop the Dark Lord' part and concentrated on the 'this way'.

"Is there any other way?"

Draco looked at him and replied with an openness that was uncharacteristic for him: "We can kill him." There was apparently an '_if_ anything at all' supposed to follow that statement, but to Harry it made more sense than Draco could have expected.

"The one with the power to kill the Dark Lord…" he muttered.

"Jimmy?"

Harry looked up. Draco was paler than usually, almost transparent. It was for a moment difficult to believe that there was actually red blood flowing under that paper-white skin, although he had seen the proof of that repeatedly.

"Yeah?"

"Is there something you should have told me but didn't?"

"Well… At first it didn't concern you. And then…" The truth was that Harry had driven it from his mind; he had deliberately forgotten about it. "The gist is… as long as I'm alive, I'm the only one who can kill him."

"Not anymore…" Draco mumbled.

"What… Why?"

Draco pulled his hand from Harry's grasp and turned away from him, angry, but not as betrayed as Harry feared he would be. It took less than a minute for the ex-Slytherin to face him again.

"Magically, we are an extension of each other." He stepped closer, seeking comfort in touch. Harry hugged him, relieved that they weren't going to fight. He felt ashamed enough as it was, and guilty for the shock Draco had just received. He should have remembered earlier. He should have thought to mention it.

"I'm sorry."

"You… wanted to escape it. I'm not surprised. I'd like to escape that, too…"

When Draco seemed able to walk on his own without tripping and breaking his neck, they separated and tacitly went to search for the cave. The way hadn't changed much in a year and half and they found the opening quickly. It was cold and dark in there, but it was also dry and easily defendable (if they didn't mind being trapped).

They set up – mediocre, as Harry bitterly thought – wards and transfigured a part of the rocky room into a moderately habitable space.

"It was a Prophecy, right?" Draco asked above a bowl of soup. "Does it say anything helpful?"

"I- well, we, I suppose, have 'a power he knows not'."

Draco contemplated that while Harry's mind replayed the next part – and either must die at the hand of the other – over and over. It was terrifying enough when he thought it meant that he and Voldemort would duel to death, but how did Draco's inclusion change that meaning? Did one of them have to die at Voldemort's hand? Or either Harry or Voldemort would die at Draco's?

"He doesn't know about the bond," Draco remarked.

Harry shuddered. No, Voldemort didn't know that. But how was it a power? He couldn't imagine using Draco as a weapon. It was unthinkable. Wrong. He would die before he let that happen… _Or was that it?_ The motivation?

"It's likely that the bond makes us more resistant to Dark magic."

Harry gaped at Draco, baffled.

"The bond… is Dark?" Because that was what it sounded like. Light things tended to be susceptible to the Dark and the other way around – see how Quirrel burnt at his hands.

"Does it matter?"

Harry shrugged.

"No. But it matters that I know if it is."

Draco smiled at him for the first time that day, and the situation suddenly didn't seem quite as bleak.

"No. Bonds aren't Light or Dark, especially not natural ones. They just are."

"Do you have any idea…"

Draco shook his head.

"Not yet. But I'll think about it and come up with something." He held out his hand to Harry, who wordlessly followed him. The bed they transfigured was smaller than what they were used to, and Harry suspected that it was so that Draco would have a viable excuse to remain pressed up against him. It worked out for him, too.

"Goodnight, Jimmy," Draco mumbled when the Illuminare went out, kissed Harry with less passion and more… something else… than what they were used to and pretended to fall asleep instantly.

x

"I've got an idea, but you'll kill me when I tell you…" Draco said on the evening of October 30th. Harry lay back and stared at the irregular granite ceiling.

"At this point you can suggest Canada and I won't disagree."

Draco sniggered and moved close enough for Harry to feel his body heat.

"This is ways worse than Canada." He rested his head on Harry's chest and let him card his fingers through the longish raven hair. It was a deceptively peaceful setting. "I promise I don't want either of us to die… even if it might sound like it."

"Any plan that has a chance to work must be crazy," Harry replied with cynicism far beyond his years. "Just suggest something. An idea, clue, anything…" He was well aware of just how desperate he sounded, but there was no point in pretending else to Draco. Draco always could see right through him anyway.

"Okay. I think we could just follow him into the castle, keep his attention off the hostages and…"


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

x

Harry watched as the last of the Death Eaters walked through the gaping hole burnt into the wards. He observed soundlessly as Draco, hidden under the Invisibility Cloak, dispatched the two woefully inadequate guards. They met between the statues of the winged boars where, until today, the gate used to stand.

"I'm not scared," Draco proclaimed in a faintly trembling voice, while folding and stashing away the Cloak. He adjusted his red hood and pretended that the reason why he reached out to grasp Harry's wrist wasn't that he was scared out of his mind.

"Luke-"

"Jimmy." They stood impassively for several seconds, ignoring the screams coming all the way from the Great Hall. It was Dumbledore's fault, anyway. They had warned him. "I want you to kiss me."

Harry brought Draco closer and was about to comply with the request, when the damned ex-Slytherin grasped his collar and plundered his mouth with an unprecedented ferocity. They weren't inclined to be overly gentle with each other, but this was simply feral… Harry didn't like it.

He pulled the boy against his chest, hyper-aware of the hot puffs of ragged breath against his neck.

"It's not the last time-"

"It might be," Draco cut him off. "If we win-"

"_When_."

"_If_ we win…" Draco ignored his feckless attempt at optimism, "will you…"

"I bonded you, Luke," Harry said, harsher than he intended to sound. "It's not like I would turn my back on you just because a half-blooded ghoul bit the dust – fifteen years too late, I might add." He couldn't even truly remember what life had been like before Draco. If the boy in his arms said that he didn't think they could do it, asked him to give up and to run away, go to France or Canada or Tibet… he would do it.

"Just shut up and, please, try to stick to the plan."

Harry smiled coldly, pressed a chaste but considerably gentler kiss against Draco's lips and gave him a push towards to castle.

x

Draco walked into the Great Hall with his customary swagger. He got several steps inside before anybody took notice of him. The Hall was full of people; students sat at their House tables with Death Eaters positioned strategically among them with their wand brandished and waiting for the order to cast.

Voldemort himself was standing next to a Petrified, Bound and Silenced Dumbledore, delivering a victory speech.

"I think I will start with the one among you, who angered me the most." Eyes throughout the hall swayed to the unmoving figure of the Headmaster, but Voldemort laughed (Harry cringed at the high-pitched sound) and shook his nose-less head. "No, Albus. You will watch. I dare say there is nothing more painful to you than the sight of your greatest failure. I will start with… Severus. The little treacherous snake who thought he was so smart…"

If Harry knew Draco as well as he thought he did, Snape wouldn't get tortured that evening.

"I protest! This is against human rights!"

Harry chuckled at the inanity of Draco's comment and took a cursory look around the Hall. None of the students had their wands and even so Ron, Hermione and Ginny each had a Death Eater guarding them. Apparently, his friends were considered dangerous.

"Who are you…" Voldemort asked in a voice that promised a world of pain.

"Well," Draco drawled, "I've been called lots of things… but lately people call me Luke."

Harry sauntered in, pretending to be inspecting the decoration (which wasn't quite as spectacular as he had come to expect of Hogwarts' feasts), and came to stand beside Draco.

"Jimmy," he said simply to respond to all the pointed stares. He couldn't believe they were being nonchalant into Voldemort's face. Slytherins were sarcastic and Gryffindors galling, but the sheer audacity of this felt like waltzing with Death.

The combination of their names obviously sparked some recognition among the staff as among the Death Eaters.

"So you two are the potion-makers Crabbe and Goyle failed to recruit."

Harry was struck by sudden inspiration and so high on the adrenaline that he didn't have enough inhibition to stop himself from turning to Draco and speaking.

"So they were really real people?" he said with feigned surprise. He was gratified to see Draco's shoulders shaking with laughter. Apparently, several Death Eaters also had trouble keeping their composure. On the other hand, Tom Riddle didn't seem to see the humour.

"You will pay for your impudence, wretches!"

Harry sighed and shook his head.

"You're truly, madly… getting on my nerves, Tom. Like you wouldn't believe."

The entire Hall drew a shocked breath. One could have heard a pin drop – that was actually why everybody heard Draco's pained moan.

"You just couldn't help yourself but antagonise the homicidal Dark Lord?"

"It's not my fault! He's just so ugly!"

"You call _that_ ugly? That's so far on the other side of ugly that I'm not puking my guts out only 'cause I've had no lunch!"

"You say it like it's _my_ fault!" Harry raised his voice in genuine indignation. "I made sandwiches, but your stomach is just so _delicate_!" He suggested quotation marks in the air.

"Take that back!" Draco yelled. "My stomach is _not_ delicate!"

"It is!"

"You're… stupid!" That was so lame that Harry had trouble to keep himself from laughing.

"Oh, and you're a prissy know-it-all!" It was beginning to sound like their old spats. He wondered if anyone in the Hall would recognise them simply by the way they insulted each other.

"I hate you!" Draco shouted at him. It was not lame anymore, it was plain ridiculous.

"You-"

"Silence!" Voldemort, fed up with them, let himself be drawn into the argument.

Harry and Draco turned to him and unison yelled: "You shut up!"

Insults, threats and hysterical laughter sounded from various places in the Hall. Voldemort simply moved his wand and incanted his favourite curse.

"Avada Kedavra!"

Draco and Harry pushed each other out of the way of the spell, which would have normally flown between them, but the angry magic of their bond sparked by the argument caught it and, like a rubber, flipped it straight back at the perplexed Dark Lord…

There was a cacophony of cries as the Death Eaters watched Voldemort go down and, moments later, followed him onto the floor, screaming in pain and clutching their hands. They went out like lights, although, judging by the violent spasms, at least majority of them was still alive. Harry hoped so for Draco's sake. He may not have liked Snape, but Draco had an emotional connection to the man.

"Well, our job here is done," he proclaimed callously. "Time to get back to brewing."

Draco clasped his hand and pointed at his face. Harry realised that during the brief scuffle his hood had fallen back and everyone could see his face. "Whoops," he deadpanned.

It all went to Hell. All the nice plans they had made, the attempt on disappearing into obscurity, the dream of anonymity… all dashed by one simple hood.

"Harry…" Dumbledore rasped. The spells must have dissolved when Voldemort committed his indeliberate suicide. Harry's grip on Draco's hand tightened.

"Jimmy," Draco whispered. "You're their saviour. You can dictate conditions…"

Harry turned, ignoring the shocked gasps at the blackness of his eyes. The more present-minded students and members of staff had already begun to retrieve their wands and Bind and collect the unconscious Death Eaters. Somewhere behind the Gryffindor table, Neville was kicking Bellatrix's body.

"_We're_ their saviours, Luke. _We_ can dictate conditions."

He was rewarded with a smile from under the hood, one that was solely for him.

"Harry, my boy," Dumbledore tried again, having drunk a goblet of water in between. He sounded marginally better.

Harry reacted by aiming his wand at the Headmaster and narrowing his eyes.

"Don't come closer to me, old man. And don't reach for your wand."

"Harry?" Hermione's shell-shocked voice drifted to him, followed by Ron's more subdued: "Mate?"

"If you try to explain now…" Draco started. He didn't need to finish.

"Not their business," Harry agreed.

"On the other hand, it might be nice to have three nutritional, cooked meals a day… Not to have to work for a while. And think of the money we could make if we had a brand _and_ a licence…"

Harry took it as it was meant – a wish for a reprieve from adult life and a suggestion how best to exploit an unfortunate situation – not as a complaint about his culinary skills or company.

"You have returned to Hogwarts…" Dumbledore said happily, as if Harry hadn't just declared the lack of friendly relations between them to the entire school. The twinkle returned into his eyes and it only intensified when Madam Pomfrey managed to wake Snape and help him into his chair. The Potions Master didn't seem anyhow impaired.

"We will enrol as House-neutral students," Harry stated, the plural clear for everyone to hear. "We will attend the classes of our choice. You will provide us with a set of private quarters that will be without any of the dormitories and the access to which would be ours to grant or deny." He tried to remember if there was anything else he should request now and how likely he would be able to milk this situation for further advantages in the future.

"The brand…" Draco whispered urgently.

"Also, our contact to parties outside of Hogwarts will be neither monitored, nor limited in any way."

Dumbledore already looked about to agree – anything, really, to keep the Golden Boy within reach, safely locked up in the castle – when McGonagall spoke up.

"You cannot allow this… this indecency, Albus! This is a school! They are _children_!"

A part of the staff expressed their accord with the woman. The Headmaster gave her an indulgent smile, which made Harry suspect that the old goat _knew_.

"You wouldn't want to separate me from my bonded, would you?" he asked before Dumbledore got the chance to drop the shell in their stead. Draco moved perceptibly closer.

"Bonded?" the word echoed from all directions, spoken with various levels of surprise, anger and excitement.

"Indeed, Minerva." The Headmaster just couldn't help himself. "The destruction of the Dark Lord Voldemort was a manifestation of a rare type of bond…" He turned to the pair of boys standing in the centre of the Great Hall. "Of course, Harry, your requests will be adhered to, provided that you disclose the identity of your… companion."

Harry mentally congratulated themselves for getting at least one up on the Headmaster. He gave Draco's hand a squeeze and let go. It was the other boy's decision, certainly, but he had little doubt as to how he would decide. Nevertheless, he grew nervous as Draco visibly braced himself before reaching up and slowly pulling off his hood.

The silence reigned. After a while whispers sounded, but still nobody recognised the boy in the red cloak with hair and eyes of the same colour as Harry had. They already thought they would have to introduce themselves again, when one voice cut through the muffled background noise.

"Draco?"

The addressed boy met the pair of naturally black eyes and smirked.

"Hello, Professor."

Snape rubbed his temples before frowning at Dumbledore as if he had just taught a class of Neville Longbottoms.

"Headmaster, you cannot consent to keeping two Necromancers in the castle."

Harry for the first time in his life felt something akin to respect for the man. It was obvious that it pained him to say that – much as he disliked Harry, he didn't want to see Draco kicked out – yet he had objectively judged them as danger to other students and claimed them unacceptable.

Although, Harry wished he had an idea why.

"Necromancers?" he inquired.

Draco leaned closer to him ad explained under his breath: "Black eyes are a typical sign of frequent use of Necromancy."

"And you didn't think to tell me this earlier?!" Harry exclaimed… and cringed when he realised just how loud his voice was.

"Pot. Kettle," Draco replied dryly. Harry had to concede that one.

"Merlin…"

"It was useful for intimidation," Draco expanded. "Why do you think Travis paid us so much?"

"Because he thought we were Necromancers?"

"Are you not?" McGonagall asked pragmatically, casting worried glances at Snape, who looked like he was fighting a migraine and a stomach-ache at the same time.

"For goodness sake, one would think that of a full staff of teachers it would occur to at least one to try and cancel glamours. Are you wizards or are you not, people?" It felt really good to say that, though he wished in the next moment that he had refrained. He was going to live in close quarters with this group for the next almost two years. A little civility would not go the wrong way…

"Nice, but a little over the top." At least Draco was amused.

"You know me," Harry replied, refusing to display the embarrassment he felt. Once again, however, Draco saw straight through him.

"Yeah, I do. I'm cursed like that."

"Has it really been so bad?" Harry asked, feigning injury. The banter felt good… he could nearly forget that there was a corpse of one Tom Riddle completing the sub-standard décor of the Hall.

"Now you're just fishing."

"You know me," Harry repeated. Draco's smirk widened.

"Incorrigible."

"That's me." He turned to the Headmaster. "The quarters?" he demanded.

"Do you know the portrait of Valeria the Valiant?"

Harry nodded. Draco took his hand and pulled on it to get him to move away from that stage.

"Let's go, Jimmy."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

x

The quarters Dumbledore had provided featured two bedrooms; by unspoken agreement, one of them was ignored. When Harry and Draco had finally fallen asleep yesterday, they had been both quite worn out. Today, neither of them felt like crawling out of bed just yet.

It was Friday, but they couldn't be bothered about going to classes. There was a weekend ahead and they would have ample time to deal with all the details like requesting their O.W.L. results, selecting their courses and bargaining with the Ministry bureaucrats. Maybe, if they felt particularly amiable, they might even try to obtain school uniforms…

"When are your friends going to ambush us?" Draco asked around ten. Frankly, Harry was surprised that the Gryffindors have stayed away from him for that long, but he guessed that Hermione had whipped them into shape and forced them to wait until at least lunch. He cursed Dumbledore for not having the decency of not disclosing their location to the entire school, but the Headmaster never was one for courtesy beyond the glitter.

"Maybe during lunch… or after classes."

Draco climbed out of the bed, and went searching for the clothes he had worn the day before, seeing as how they hadn't bothered to take their entire wardrobes with them when they went hunting Dark Lords.

"I want to talk to Snape."

Harry felt uneasy about that. They had been separated since the bond's inception, but the environment usually was familiar and the separation a part of their routine. He was afraid that Draco might run into some of his former House-mates bent on revenge or… anything. Anything could happen…

"Stay safe," he said quietly and with trepidation watched Draco's back as the boy walked into the bathroom.

He was spell-cleaned and dressed by the time the water was turned off, but hadn't moved more than two feet from his original position. The curtains on the window were parted to let the hesitant sunrays in and the earthy colours of the room seemed too soft, as if the castle itself implored them to let go, stop being on guard at all times and relax.

Harry didn't want to relax. He wanted to never again be taken advantage of, never be forced to do things against his will, never be hurt while unable to fight back. The mattress next to him dipped; he looked up and his breath caught.

Draco had apparently given up on the black colour of his hair, but, since it wasn't just a glamour, the dye didn't come off just after one shower. It looked washed out, dark gray… his eyes were returned to their natural colour. Harry wondered how was it possible he never realised that apart from being a stuck-up spoilt snob, Draco was also incontestably beautiful.

"You better be taking good care of yourself," Harry grumbled, annoyed at how vulnerable he was feeling.

"Don't get maudlin on me, Jimmy," Draco warned him, but the equally vulnerable tone belied the words. Harry leant forwards and rested his forehead against a prominent clavicle.

"Which classes will you be taking?" he asked, sighing as Draco put an arm around his back and held him a little closer.

"The same as you will. I don't want to be stuck somewhere alone."

Harry accepted the offer to make this decision for them, although it disappointed him that Draco wouldn't be able to attend Potions and get that N.E.W.T. – he doubted that he achieved better than an 'A' on his O.W.L.s. Snape wouldn't let him near the laboratory.

"Transfiguration, Charms, Defence… Herbology, if we have the marks?"

Draco nodded.

"Don't stew here. Go awe your fans," Draco said, removing himself from Harry's immediate vicinity. The mask of impassiveness shrouded his expression.

Harry only vaguely recalled having felt so lonely before.

x

Hermione, Ron and Ginny actually waited until after dinner to approach Harry. He suspected that it was because they were uncertain about how to do it. It must have been pretty obvious that Harry had changed and no one (including the boy himself) was certain about how he was going to deal with his old associates.

He didn't blame them for being wary of a wizard who bonded Draco Malfoy.

They dragged along Neville and Dean, who said 'Hi' and fled, muttering about Seamus being a royal prat once again and spreading malicious gossip about Harry before he had even seen the lauded 'saviour' up close. The braver trio brought also horror stories about articles in the Prophet and within ten minutes of their arrival thoroughly convinced Harry to not set a foot out of the quarters before people found their sanity again and stopped proclaiming him a hero.

They lounged around the sitting room – Ron and Hermione cuddled up on a sofa that was structurally sound for a change and Ginny taking the loveseat all by herself – filled him in on what had changed since Vernon had dragged him off the platform in June and described the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. He'd stopped feeling lonely in the beginning of the conversation (though it didn't make him want to move back into the Gryffindor dormitories with them) but as the hour grew late he found himself glancing at the door more and more often.

"Now it's your turn!"

He turned sharply, meeting Ginny's eyes. She was looking at him challengingly, but he didn't feel that anything he had done in the past months (with the notable exception of Voldemort's arranged accident, for which they were there) equalled her story about Flitwick teaching a whole lesson while breathing fire and in the end setting the pile of collected homework aflame.

"I didn't really do that much. We've lived in a flat in Knockturn Alley and brewed potions-"

"_Didn't do that much_?" Ron exploded. "Mate, you disappear for four months and turn up bonded to _Malfoy_ and call it _not much_?!" Harry didn't know how to react to that. It sort of just happened. They were scared and Draco had just killed someone to protect them and… then they were bonded.

"Yeah, tell us about Malfoy!" Ginny ordered, looking a bit too interested for Harry's comfort. He didn't know how to reply to that past the obligatory proclamation of trust and comfort. It wasn't some great adventure she apparently imagined – it was just two abused kids trying to survive on their own…

"What I don't understand," Hermione stepped in, looking rather bemused for a witch who allegedly knew pretty much everything, "is how could you and Malfoy of all people fall in love."

"It doesn't mean we actually _love_ each other," Harry protested. "We just…"

"Love each other?" Hermione shot back wryly. He shook his head, faintly amused by the fact that both Weasleys mirrored the action.

"There's really something wrong with the way you've phrased that," he said. He heard the portrait scrape as it closed and sat up straighter.

Hermione wasn't deterred easily, though, and she apparently hadn't noticed Draco's return yet.

"You've been around Malfoy too long-"

"For Gods' sake, Jim!" Draco strode in, crossed the room and perched on the arm-rest of Harry's arm-chair. "Stay silent before you push your foot further down your throat." He wondered how long Draco had been listening and if he was waiting for Harry to get into a mess he needed to be helped out of. "We're bonded, Granger. The reason is our private business, and so are the emotions that were the initial impetus of the bond. What should interest you, however, is that Harry Potter is mine and if you touch him, I'll cut off your fingers one by one."

Harry wondered if Draco had formulated it so deliberately – to seemingly remain on his side, but silently invite opposing opinions. It worried him, because up to now he thought that they shared the same opinion. Was it supposed to be a deception, to make Harry's friends think better of them? Were they already lying to people, or did they just misunderstand each other?

"Luke…"

"Jimmy-"

"We've really messed this up, haven't we?" he asked quietly. He didn't know what had gone wrong and why.

"It's your fault! You're completely transparent!"

Was that what Draco thought? That everyone would be taken in by these ridiculous notions of a fairy-tale romance between them because Harry was protective about him? And even if they were, wouldn't it be better than if they vilified Draco?

"I'm not bloody ashamed of you!" he snarled, feeling defensive. It surprised him a little that Draco has returned acting like the Slytherin poster boy he used to be before the last summer, but after the boy spent hours in Snape's company, he should have expected it. It didn't change the fact that Harry wasn't giving him up… unless that was what Draco wanted. Draco had suggested that he didn't want them to go their own separate ways, but he didn't say it outright and, anyway, maybe he had been reminded of what his life used to be like and changed his mind…

Harry leant back and, through the lenses of his invisible spectacles, surveyed Draco.

"I'm damn proud and I don't want anybody thinking that they can mess with you." Draco's expression didn't change. "Only over my dead body."

Hermione scoffed and Harry was, quite suddenly, reminded that there were other people in the room with them. Ron was red (though it was uncertain whether that was a blush and, if so, whether it was Hermione's doing) and Ginny kept her hand pressed against her mouth to muffle her giggling. They might have been good friends in their own naïve, innocent way, but Harry wished they hadn't been there at the moment.

"As I said," Hermione stated, facing the two red-heads, "they love each other."

Harry made one last attempt to protest.

"We-"

"Give it up, mate," Ron shushed him, shaking his head.

"It's pretty obvious, Harry," Ginny added, disgustingly cheerful about his humiliation.

The four of them (_including Draco_) laughed at him as he buried his face in the convenient robe in front of it. Draco indulged him for a while, which was really enough for Harry to notice that his laughter wasn't really all that merry, for his breathing was calm and even. Eventually he gripped Harry's shoulder and hauled him off himself.

"I have news," he said quietly in a suddenly serious voice.

"Fine, people," Harry proclaimed loudly and cast a half-hearted glare at his former House-mates. "This is it for today. Maybe we'll repeat it sometimes. Thanks for visiting and goodbye."

Ron gave him a fairly compelling fish-impression.

"You're chucking us out?" he asked incredulously.

"It's not completely stupid!" Draco exclaimed in mocking wonder. "Yes, Weasley, that's exactly what he's doing."

"Ha-" Ron abruptly fell silent when Hermione and Ginny tugged on his hands and forced him to stand from the sofa. "Oh fine. We'll come by tomorrow."

Harry waited impatiently until the portrait scraped to a close again, this time isolating the two of them from the rest of the world.

"What kind of news?" Harry asked once they were well and truly alone.

"Good ones… I think." Draco slid off the arm of his chair and lounged comfortably on the recently vacated sofa. "You didn't qualify for Potions N.E.W.T., so I dropped it, too. Snape's heard of J&L and offered us private tutorials instead."

Private lessons with Snape. It sounded disconcertingly familiar. It wasn't going to be like Occlumency, certainly, because Snape wouldn't dare do something like that to him if there was a witness, but there was also nothing stopping him from acting like he used to in normal classes.

"I don't know…" he said uncertainly. His automatic reaction – to turn to Draco in his search for an answer – was more telling that he wanted to admit to himself. Sure, they had had to learn to depend on each other… and they had also become accustomed to each other's support to the point that they were subconsciously seeking it out.

"I think he just wants to see us work before he offers an Apprenticeship."

The statement was more persuasive than anything Draco could have come up with himself. Harry wouldn't stop him from going, anyway, if that was what he wished.

"But if you'll study potions, what will I be doing?" he asked forlornly. He had come to sort of like brewing, even though it wouldn't have been his occupation of choice had he ever had a choice in the first place. Of all the things he was qualified to do (kill, steal, prostitute…) brewing was by far the most enjoyable… It was a pity.

"Idiot!" Draco snarled at him. "Jimmy, I told you before – magically, we are one being. If he offers Apprenticeship to one of us, he offers it to both."

Harry blinked in surprise. That Snape would be willing to withstand his presence despite… well, despite the fact that he was _Harry Potter_… they had to be more special than he had realised.

"You want that?" he asked the gray-haired boy sitting opposite him. He got no answer, but the silence was a response enough. "Okay."

Draco gave him one of those precious, enchanting smiles. Harry considered relocating to the sofa so that he was closer to that smile.

"You look… content," he said, though he, in fact, meant that Draco looked _happy_.

"I'll probably be soon apprenticed to a Potions Master, the Dark Lord is dead, my father has been delivered back to Azkaban yesterday and you're still here. There's no reason for me to not be content." Draco's voice was harsh and Harry was almost glad to hear that it was so. He had nearly forgotten what it was that had brought them to the initial armistice and it was good to be reminded – it was good to know that Lucius Malfoy was rotting in Azkaban – although he felt slightly guilty about finding such pleasure in something that re-awakened Draco's worse memories.

When he shifted in the armchair his stomach growled. He thought that Draco was probably hungry – he had been with Snape during the dinner – and that he might have been, too, since he had missed both lunch and dinner. He didn't feel so, though. He, actually, didn't recall feeling really hungry since the beginning of July. He figured that he was messed up rather badly.

They sat there in silence, contemplating, until the last candle burnt out. In the fallen darkness, Harry found it easier to ask the question that had been vexing him since Hermione had brought up the matter.

"Do you think we really love each other?"

Draco laughed shortly and Harry was about to get defensive, when he realised that there was really nothing malicious about that laughter.

"How would I know?" he asked self-deprecatingly.

Indeed, how would either of them know? What was it, even – love? Everyone acted like it was something fabulous, barely attainable… but then, lots of couples claimed that they knew what it was like. They said they weren't able to put it in words, but Harry figured that it included self-sacrifice, some kind of passion, willingness to put the person before other obligations… Draco and Harry had all of that.

"I want to stay with you for the rest of my life," he stated. It was becoming increasingly more difficult to recall his priorities before there was Draco (and, right behind him, simple, straightforward survival… then, perhaps, his friends). "Does that qualify?"

"No idea," Draco replied in a voice that disproved the lightness of the answer he was going for. Harry could, in the pitch-black, see through him like he never was able to before. "Just stay here long enough and I'll make it worth it."

x

The End

x

A/N: And that's it. I hope you are not _too_ disappointed. If the response to this fic is truly overwhelming, I _might_ be persuaded to write a one shot sequel/epilogue… but I'm not sure… No promises.  
Brynn


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